Sunday, December 8, 2013

In Praise of Our Oh-So Liberal Selves

Steven Epp as the Maniac in "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" All photos by Joan Marcus

Read the program.

In 1969, a bank in Milan, Italy,
was bombed. The police blamed anarchists. An anarchist was duly arrested and,
after three days of interrogation at a police station, the suspect jumped, or
was pushed, out of a fourth-story window. Convoluted cover-ups ensued, Italy became enflamed, and in response, Nobel
prize-winner Dario Fo wrote the farcical “Accidental Death of an Anarchist,”
intentionally pouring oil on the fire that was Italy in the 70s.

So, why read the Yale Repertory
Theatre’s program for its current production of Fo’s effort? Well, the problem
with this production was apparently sensed by those involved, for we have this
comment: “Although we are not generally steeped in the Italian politics of the
early 1970s, it is not a stretch for us to appreciate Fo’s barbed and pointed
jokes.” Well, I beg to differ. It is
a stretch, and even with Gavin Richards somewhat heavy-handed adaptation and
update of Gillian Hanna’s translation, this is theater that cries out for its
lost context.

I’m as liberal as the next reader
of “In These Times,” but that doesn’t mean I will immediately give knee-jerk
applause to a play that seeks to bash the conservative opposition with mace and
war hammer. This is, if you will, an exercise in what might be called
self-satisfied theater, and director Christopher Bayes seems to think that his
audience will, by and large, be composed of those of a marked liberal bent
predisposed to nod (and sometimes applaud) at what, at times, seems little more
than left-wing rant.

Liam Craig and Molly Bernard

The setting of the play is the aforementioned
Milan police
headquarters circa 1970, where several officers have gathered to interrogate
the Maniac (Steven Epp). It’s an interesting collection of officers: Bertozzo
(Jesse J. Perez), a Hispanic, Constable (Eugene Ma), an Oriental, and Pissani
(Allen Gilmore), a Black man, soon to be joined by the Superintendent (Liam
Craig), a blustering Caucasian, and a crusading journalist, Felletti (Molly
Bernard) – the casting allows that fanaticism and neo-Facist tendencies know no
ethnic boundaries. It also sets the stage for the characters to comment on just
about every liberal whipping boy imaginable, from sexism and political corruption
to police brutality, the more edacious aspects of capitalism and the Bush-Cheney
non-existent WMDs, all in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge manner that takes on the
aspect of preaching to the choir, no more so than in the Maniac’s final,
bromidic soliloquy which ends with the challenge: “What are you going to do?” An appropriate
response might be: “Yawn?” The whole effort comes off as a SNL skit with
absurdist overtones.

Eugene Ma, Steven Epp, Allen Gilmore, and Liam Craig

Bayes, who directed the Rep’s
outstanding production of “The Servant of Two Masters,” (what an opening
scene!), as well as “A Doctor in Spite of Himself,” once again brings aspects
of Commedia Del Arte to his staging of “Anarchist,” but this time it rings just
a bit hollow. The characters’ antics and occasional breaking out into song and
dance feel forced, and although there are moments when the silliness, taken at
face value, is entertaining, it somehow seems disconnected from the true spirit
of a play meant to be bitingly sarcastic.

Fo rewrote his play several times
so that it would be au courant, but
there was always the need to shine a light on the reality of what was going on
in Italy
at the time. Bereft of that context, Richards’ adaptation seems to be mere
grist for conversational talking points at a soigné cocktail party, a
drop-a-phrase event that allows all to nod their heads in acknowledgement of
how horrid the times have become and how crude and boorish is the opposition as
another canapé is consumed.

“Accidental Death of an Anarchist”
runs through Dec. 21. For tickets, call Yale Rep, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven
at 203-432-1234 or go to www.yalerep.org.